Stone to Bread
by pixie diva
Summary: The nobility of Corus have been reaped for the 76th Annual Hunger Games. Rated for violence. Originally published for Crossover Week on Goldenlake.


There are only sixty seconds until the gong sounds and the glittering walls of magic dissolve from around the tributes. After that, it's time to run. It's time to get to the Cornucopia and scavenge what you need to start picking off peers and friends. For Kel, it's not enough time. How can she prepare herself for eleven murders in one short minute? How can she reconcile herself to the fact that even if she walks out of the chamber at the end of this, so many others won't? Kel takes a deep breath and tries to settle her nerves. I am a placid lake, she tells herself. I am at peace. I am like stone. Only sixty seconds, and then the gong sounds. Kel doesn't waste any time: She runs towards the Cornucopia like an arrow just loosed from the bow and doesn't look back.

* * *

When the rebels had taken Corus and announced that a term of their treaty included a final, symbolic Games to be reaped from the youth of nobility, there had been an enormous uproar in the capitol. But finally, King Jonathan and Queen Thayet had conceded. What else could they have done? The rebels had occupied the palace. They had won. And now they had chosen to exact vengeance.

On reaping day Kel had stood penned off with a cluster of other pages, and wondered if vengeance was worth the down payment in festering hatred. How could continuing a cycle of bloodshed really bring about peace? But this was what they had chosen. And when Kel saw Katniss Everdeen the Mockingjay step onto the podium and listlessly begin to read a recounting of the rebellion's rise to victory, she began to think some more. Katniss Everdeen had survived the arena twice and come out broken. Who knew what she had lost along the way. Yes, Kel could understand why the Mockingjay sought revenge. It still didn't make it right.

Public opinion was currently in a state of divided chaos on that front. A time when talk of Sir Raoul of Goldenlake being a double agent was a poisonous rumour seemed distant: That day he stood firmly behind the Mockingjay, arms crossed over his chest.

And conversely, Baron George of Pirate's Swoop still stood with the crown. Many had assumed that the baron would sympathize with the rebellion, seeing as he came from common roots himself. In his youth, George had even been eligible for the reaping. Perhaps this was why he had worked his way into peerage in the first place - to avoid such a fate for his own children. But it hadn't mattered. His ten year old twins were signed up for the reaping with everybody else.

Katniss Everdeen finished talking and made way for Plutarch Heavensbee, head Gamemaker. He would be reading the names drawn from the reaping, but first there was another speech. This one was largely about what the monarchy owed commoners and the glorious end to human violence that a final Hunger Games represented. Kel thought it reeked of hypocrisy and arrogance, but there was a rapt fierceness on the faces of many commoners, so sure that theirs was a righteous cause. Kel found herself studying their faces without shame, trying to parse out what cause was so great that they were willing to send strangers to die for it. She didn't snap her attention back to Plutarch Heavensbee until she realized that the first name was being read.

"Page Nealan of Queenscove."

Kel felt the bottom of her stomach drop, and she had to bite down on the urge to volunteer to go in his stead. But they had made a pact that neither would sacrifice themselves for the other at the reaping, and she struggled to keep that promise, though the sight of Neal, white as parchment as he climbed the podium, cut her to the marrow.

And of course the flood of names had only started. Next called was Yancen of Irenoha. Then Vinson of Genlith. The Wildmage, Daine Sarrasri. Merric of Hollyrose. Baron George's only daughter, Alianne of Pirate's Swoop. Uline of Hannalof.

When Owen of Jesslaw was called, Kel nearly choked. Across the way, Owen caught her eye and shook his head, the slightest of motions. The tiny gesture said all it needed to. Don't sacrifice yourself for me, it said. I'll only take the next tribute's place. And Kel knew that her rash, proud friend would do it, too.

It didn't matter, in any case. The next name called was Keladry of Mindelan.

* * *

The gong sounds and Daine latches onto the fastest form she can think of. A martlet. She is a blur of speed with broad wings and barely visible feet and when she falls into the Cornucopia, naked and in human form again, she is yards ahead of the other tributes. She scoops up anything that looks useful and readily available -a survival pack, a crossbow, a knife- before taking flight again as a large bird of prey. Daine feels unbalanced, laden as she is with weapons and tools, but she is too far above the din to be especially worried about this. Besides, the rest of the tributes have reached the Cornucopia now, and nobody is paying attention to her. The bloodbath has begun.

Daine knows that she should keep flying, find a northern rendezvous that her allies will be able to trail, but she finds herself frozen in flight, transfixed by the tributes converging on the Cornucopia below. Bitterness wells within Daine. It would have been too much to ask, she thinks, for us to band together and find another way. For us to not turn on each other the moment we were signaled to. From her birds eye view, the tributes are already beginning to tear each other to ribbons over the Cornucopia's bounty. Scratch the surface, and all anybody really wants is to survive. Daine knows this, but it brings on too many memories of running with the pack, of picking off Gallan bandits one by one.

There is an earsplitting shriek, one that brings Daine back to reality. She has what she needs, and watching this massacre is only wasting precious moments for regrouping. She flies north, awkward and burdened.

* * *

It feels like hours for the battle at the Cornucopia to end. In reality, Zahir knows it couldn't have been more than minutes, but as he stands back to back with Vinson, drenched in sweat and heaving with exertion, it might as well have been an eternity.

When the fighting finally dies down, all that is left is Zahir, Vinson, and a welter of gore. Everyone who survived has retreated. Zahir and Vinson take stock of the aftermath and spoils. Four dead, including Joren. He would have been an easy alliance, had he only survived. A lump rises in Zahir's throat, cloying and unexpected. He and Joren had once been close, though his stubborn beliefs had eventually drawn them apart. Zahir misses him, suddenly and fervently, even though he knows it doesn't matter, because now Joren was dead.

Vinson is beside Zahir now, bristling with scavenged weapons. He follows Zahir's gaze to Joren's corpse and nudges it with the toe of his boot. "Poor bastard," Vinson says. "I saw him go down. He got a knife from Jesslaw. Rotten way to go."

There is a moment of silence, heavy with the gravity of loss, and then Vinson shrugs. "Oh well. Better him than us. Come on, let's go eat."

Vinson marches away from the Cornucopia. As soon as they leave, the mages will come to collect the bodies. Zahir says a silent prayer for Joren before he sheathes a bloodstained sword and follows his only living friend.

* * *

Uline is smart enough to know that she won't survive the free for all fight at the Cornucopia. She can ride. She can shoot a bow. But against ten trained fighters, Uline knows she wouldn't have had a chance.

Besides, she has made other plans. Instead of plunging into the fray, Uline sprints away from the Cornucopia. She heads north.

She is not sure what it is that she is looking for, but hopes that she will recognize it on sight. A twist of thread, an angled branch - anything. Blessedly, the arena seems to be modeled after the Royal Forest, familiar grounds. Uline briefly wonders if this really is a blessing, or rather a joke on behalf of the rebel Gamemakers. And if that is the case, how familiar can it really be? It is an arena, after all.

There is the sharp screech of a bird overhead and Uline's head snaps up, suspicious and unarmed. Her fear melts away as soon as she realizes that this is no ordinary bird, weighed down by weapons and camping supplies. Uline holds up the only thing she did stop to pick up, slim black breeches and a loose, dark shirt. Tribute garb.

"Looking for something?" she asks, and the bird trills and lands, shedding its gear before transforming back into Daine, who takes the clothing gratefully before shimmying into it.

"Where's Aly?" Daine asks as soon as she is dressed.

"She isn't with you?" Uline asks. "I didn't...I mean, it wasn't safe to run towards the Cornucopia for any reason. I don't know where Alianne is."

Daine swears now, and colourfully for such a small girl. "I haven't seen her," she says. "Mithros help us, if she gets killed...I promised Alanna that I'd look out for her!"

"I'm sure she just got lost," Uline says quickly. "You said north, right? Maybe she got mixed up and headed northeast instead."

"Maybe," says Daine, but she doesn't sound convinced.

"We'll look for her after the anthem," Uline assures her.

* * *

The cannon booms four times. Four deaths. On the first day, this also signals that the mayhem at the Cornucopia has died down. But Kel doesn't need a cannon to announce that, since she and her friends had been the last to retreat.

"I still don't see why we didn't stick around," Owen pipes. "They were outnumbered, and there isn't anybody you can't beat, Kel. It would have been a proper fight. Probably the only one we'll get in here."

"Because we aren't here to kill," Kel says. "We're just defending ourselves until we find another way."

"Kel thinks that if she asks politely enough, the chamber will let us out of here," Neal says. His voice is dry, but there's real, unleashed pain in his eyes. It's reflected in all of them after what happened.

After they left Merric behind.

"He ran out there ready to fight," Neal says, echoing their collective thought. "None of us expected that."

"He wanted to live," Kel says softly. Then she ducks her head, hardens her resolve. "We should all pool our stock."

The arena was something that nothing and nobody had ever prepared Kel for. Not Lord Wyldon, not her time in the Yamani Isles, not even the bullies she had faced down since she had learned to hold a stick. Everything she had learned before had adhered to one simple value: Protect your allies.

In the arena you could only pick one person. Just one. The rest had to unquestioningly die. Kel knew the rules, but that didn't mean she had to play by them. She would find another way, and she would save her friends.

When the anthem starts up, Kel, Neal, and Owen cluster together and stare at the sky, where an illusion of the Tortallan coat of arms floats. It fades away, and then they are shown images of the tributes who died today. Merric of Hollyrose, which they had already known. Alaric of Nond, a squire Kel had barely known by sight. Joren of Stone Mountain.

Kel feels a sour pang in her chest as Joren's lovely face ripples into view. He had been her enemy, but she had known him. Kel had instantly presumed that Joren would have been her greatest foe in the Games, and now he was dead by the first anthem. She isn't sure how she ought to feel anymore.

Joren's face blinks out, and the final fatality is presented. Alianne of Pirate's Swoop.

A hiss escapes Neal's teeth, and not entirely because Alianne was so young. The Lioness' daughter, slaughtered. Somebody will be answering to the lightning temper of the King's Champion for this.

Kel wonders who that will be. Already she can see the the endless reactions of rage and vengeance sworn that each death will create. And she knows in her heart that the Mockingjay was wrong, that this will solve nothing.

There must be another way.

* * *

Vinson is cleaning his weapons on a patch of grass when the anthem plays out the fallen tributes. "Only eight left," he comments. "Not bad."

Zahir says nothing. He is polishing his sword as well, but not with grass. He uses the Raven Armory polishing cloth that he begged to be allowed as his token. It reminds him of his father and brings him comfort.

"Who do you think is left?" Vinson asks.

Zahir shrugs.

"We know the Lump and the rest of her friends made it," Vinson continues, ignoring Zahir's silence. "And the Wildmage took off as soon as the bell rang. Oh, and you and me." he pauses to scratch his nose. "That's only six. Who are the other two?"

"I suppose we will know when we see them," Zahir says quietly.

Vinson spits onto the ground and continues to inspect his weapons. "You've become a real stoic, huh?" he says with a sneer. "Squiring for the king puffed your head right up."

"Shut up," snaps Zahir. Vinson only smirks.

Had being King Jonathan's squire made Zahir conceited? He didn't think so. When he thinks back on how he behaved as a boy, arrogant and full of rage, Zahir thinks that he has grown into something greater. Certainly spending so much time with the Voice has made him look at himself more critically.

And Zahir worries that it is who he once was, rather than who he hopes to become, that has landed him in the arena. That he has been condemned to atone for his past sins

Well, he will atone, if that is what has been asked of him. And if the only way for Zahir to find redemption is with blood, then he will do that too.

* * *

As soon as the tributes were released from their magic circles, Yancen began to walk away from the Cornucopia. He knew that he was stronger that most of the other tributes, and that he probably could had come out of the first battle bloody and victorious. He also knew that he didn't want to. Yancen doesn't care about winning. He only cares about surviving.

With a little luck, Yancen thinks he might be able to outlive most of the other tributes. The woods are dense, and he is sure that they will be full of things to eat as long as he knows how to find them. He does, of course. Yancen remembers his lessons as a page well.

If he waits long enough, Yancen is sure that Joren and his cronies will hunt down Keladry and her gang, and the two forces will wipe each other out. Yancen never made it a habit to get in the middle of their brawls in the palace, and he thinks that now would be a terrible time to start.

Yancen walks deeper and deeper into the forest. Eventually, he breaks off a branch that makes a passable walking stick, discovers a nest of eggs and eats them raw. He is waiting for the anthem, which will tell him how the odds have shifted. Then he will make plans for the night.

Something deeper within the forest draws his attention. It is making a racket, carelessly enough that Yancen is sure it couldn't be another tribute. It sounds unnatural though, its scrapes and clacking undeniably metallic. A Gamemaker's trap, then. But what? Stormwings, maybe. He knew they had wings of steel.

Yancen prided himself on being too smart to get into the middle of a fight, but that didn't mean he had no sense of curiosity or adventure. If the Gamemakers have something nasty in store, Yancen doesn't want to be surprised. He follows the noise and goes searching for monsters.

* * *

After the anthem plays, Daine feels like screaming. In fact, she almost does scream, and is only cut short by the fear of other tributes who might be out there listening, tributes who will be hunting through the night. Instead, she buries her head in her knees and lets her mass of smoky curls hide her face.

One task. That's all she had been given. One desperate plea from parents who weren't allowed into the arena: Keep Alianne safe. And she had failed them before the first day was even out.

Daine had wished that the tributes would team up and refuse to spill each other's blood but she hadn't been surprised when that never happened. After all, everyone whose name had been drawn had seen enough Games to know that only one person can be picked to win. Daine had picked Aly. Now Aly was dead, and Daine isn't sure who she wants to win.

She looks up, sees Uline sorting through the packs, and immediately feels horrible. Of course if the Lioness' daughter is gone, she will help her other ally. After all, hadn't Queen Thayet herself asked the two of them to work together? She trusts the Queen, so now she will trust Uline. After all, what other choice does Daine have?

"There's no water," Uline announces. "Just an empty container."

"Drat." Without water, Daine knows they won't get far. "Food?"

"Some. It looks like Riders' rations."

Daine's mouth quirks unexpectedly. "Barley soup?"

"Yes indeed," Uline says after another moment.

The Royal Forest. Fare popular with the Queen's Riders. It really is as though the arena has been designed to put nobility at ease and that scares Daine. An arena that looks comforting is usually the most deadly of all. Daine has seen enough of them designed to know the truth behind that.

At times when Daine had been in the lower city with Numair somebody had stopped him and asked if a mage of his level could really turn a stone into a loaf of bread. Numair had looked uncomfortable.

"Yes, I suppose so," he had said in his quiet way.

"Then why aren't you doing that," the stranger always wanted to know, "instead of designing the Hunger Games? You could really help people!"

"If a perform a spell that rigorous, I could be sick for days," Numair would always say. But of course, that wouldn't matter to a commoner who was starving and greeted sickness every morning like an unwelcome guest. And the real questions would never be answered anyway. All they would ever really be wanting to know was why Numair continued to design the games. Why he continued to devise new ways to torment and murder their children every year.

Of course, for Numair, the Games were never about the repercussions in human lives, only the academic wonder in it. No mage in living history had been given as much leave to experiment with the Chamber of Ordeal as the designer of the Games had been. Numair didn't want to turn stone into bread. He wanted do things that nobody had ever done before.

Daine doesn't want to die. She doesn't even think she deserves to. But she suspects that she needs to, not for what she has done, but for what she has failed to do.

"We should find water," Daine finally says. "If this really is the Royal Forest, there should be streams all over the place. We can make camp there, rest and eat up. After that we can...we can..." she doesn't know how to continue. What should they do? Other tributes would probably be hunting throughout the night but Daine doesn't know if she can actually hunt down people when it comes down to it.

She hears the crunch of distant footsteps, and realizes that now it is too late to find out. She adjusts her human ears to those of a bat, and hears two boys, not far away. They are close enough to know where Uline and Daine are, in any case.

Daine nods towards the loaded crossbow. "Pick that up," she whispers to Uline.

"We've got company."

* * *

The sound of battle cry sends Kel, Neal and Owen running. It is as though they have forgotten that they are in the arena. In a time of crisis, the innate training of a knight will always take over. They will always rush to protect those weaker than they.

When the pages burst onto the clearing they find Vinson and Zahir facing off against a growling jungle cat who can only be the Wildmage. Blood speckles her tawny hide and her tail snaps back and forth. She stands protectively in front of Uline of Hannalof.

"That's the kicker when you send heroes into the ring," Vinson comments as he edges towards Daine. "They just can't stop protecting people!"

Vinson brings his sword down just as Kel lunges forward and parries with her spear. It's not a glaive, but it will do, and that's why she picked it up at the Cornucopia.

"It would be too much to ask for the Lump to butt out of one fight," Vinson snarls. He disengages from Kel and hacks with his sword again, but Kel is ready for this. She parries his chop and kicks the older boy square in the stomach. Vinson wheezes and stumbles backwards a few steps.

Kel is about to strike at him again when Owen rushes between them and flings himself at Vinson. He only has a knife, but that doesn't seem to matter. Owen strikes at Vinson again and again, the blade flashing as he catches him once on the cheek, once in the shoulder.

And then Vinson has regained his footing. He grabs Owen firmly around the wrist and squeezes the fine bones together until the younger boy cries out and drops his knife. It falls into Vinson's waiting hand and he jams it mercilessly into Owen's eye socket with such force that Vinson's face is misted with a fine spray of blood. He lets go of the knife, and lets it drop with Owen's corpse.

Kel can hear Uline scream and Neal's choked cry, but she only feels cold all over. If there was ever a time for her to kill, now would be it. She advances on Vinson, whose look of bloody triumph fades into something that looks like terror when he sees Kel. There is a ragged slash in his cheek and one shoulder is bleeding sluggishly where Owen's knife made contact. Vinson stumbles backwards. He knows that he will not win this fight, even if it is against a girl.

"Fall...fall back!" he shouts to Zahir and the two squires go crashing into the woods.

Kel is ready to make chase, but Neal grabs her around the arm when she tries, tightly enough to bruise.

"Let go of me! They're getting away!" Kel shakes Neal off her arm.

"You made me promise," Neal says grimly. "No killing. We will only defend."

Neal tries to grab hold of Kel again but she breaks free and shoves him in the chest for good measure. "He killed Owen!" she shouts, and her voice cracks.

Someone claps her on the shoulder and Kel spins around, ready to attack. She pulls short once she sees that it is only Daine, dressed in the shreds of a shirt and breeches.

"We should probably get away from the body," she says softly.

The body. Kel feels her throat catch as she numbly shuffles away with the others. She understands the driving force behind vengeance better than ever now. Vinson will pay for what he has done.

* * *

The cannon fires.

Vinson crashes heedlessly through the brush and Zahir can't help but be disgusted. Yes, they are leaving their immediate enemies behind them, but Vinson is ignoring the pressing danger of open wounds, unfamiliar territory and a fully loaded arena in his haste to get away from Keladry and the Wildmage. A twig cracks loudly, and Zahir winces.

"I don't know why you even ran if you were planning to practically shout which way we were heading," says Zahir.

"Shut up," Vinson hisses. "Just shut up! I couldn't...I was caught off guard...I can't lose to..." Vinson's eyes are wild in the dying light. "I won't die, Zahir, not at her hands!"

"We all die some time."

"What?" Vinson thrashes, trying to lock onto Zahir or find a defensive pose. He's too late. Zahir pulls Vinson's head back by the roots of his hair and cuts his throat. Vinson's last screams come out in a choked burble, and then he is dead.

The cannon blasts while Zahir is patting down Vinson's body, taking anything that looks useful. He shoulders a crossbow and walks a short distance away so that the mages can collect the body. When the whistle of magic fades, Zahir inspects his new crossbow, loads and readies it. If the trail of ripped plants wasn't enough for Keladry and her team to follow, the sound of the cannon signaling Vinson's death certainly was.

Zahir waits, and when the rest of the tributes break into view, he shoots without hesitation.

* * *

The sound of cannon fire, the fifth shot of the night, makes Yancen pull up short. Only seven tributes left. He wonders who it was. It doesn't matter, he supposes. The higher the death count, the sooner he can get out of this place.

And besides, Yancen is hunting something else now. He is hot on the trail of the Gamemakers' trap.

Twice, he had seen the creature's tail, spiked and tipped with a ball like a mace. Whatever it is, it's no Stormwing, that's for sure.

Yancen stopped hunting during the anthem, when his desire to reevaluate the odds and pay his final respects won out over his curiosity. It hurt to watch. Alaric of Nond had been a friend.

After the anthem, Yancen realizes that he has lost the trail. The monster is noisy and big, very big, but its speed is almost supernatural and the sound of the anthem covered its scraping gait. There is such a wake of debris that Yancen is not concerned about finding it, but he does wonder how far away it might have gotten. When the fifth cannon sounds, Yancen is sure that he is close. He is surrounded by bruised foliage and clawed trees, and if he strains he can hear the monster clank.

Yancen stumbles into a clearing, but its empty. He can hear something else now: Shouting. There are other tributes nearby. Yancen doesn't want to risk an encounter with any other person until he has at least managed to get his hands on a weapon. He backs up, plans to walk away in the opposite direction of the fighting tributes.

The monster is in his way, and maybe it always has been. Yancen feels a fleeting jolt of satisfaction, tortuously bittersweet. There is the impression of metal coated bones and jagged teeth, and then the thing slices Yancen's head off.

* * *

Pandemonium. That's what it is like in Kel's head after three cannons sound so close together. She knows one was for Owen, but who were the other two? Vinson and Zahir? Or something else? Kel can no longer even remember how many players are still on the field, and when she realizes that she can no longer even rely on numbers, she feels extremely addled.

"We should follow the noise of the cannons," says Kel.

"Are you mad?" Neal retorts. "Towards the cannons is the one place we can be certain something will try to kill us."

"Exactly," says Kel. "At least we'll be certain of something."

Neal squawks with outrage, but he is interrupted by the more pragmatic Uline. "Which cannon?" she asks. "There were two."

Kel purses her lips, and then nods towards the path that Vinson and Zahir forged while escaping. "That way," she says. "If the cannons were for Vinson and Zahir, it's important that we know. And if they were because they are out there killing then we should...we should..." Kel gulps and licks her suddenly dry lips. "Then I want to know about that, too."

"Are you even listening to yourself?" Neal asks. "If we find them, they will kill us, and we will all be dead."

"No, she's right," Daine pipes. "If there's anything to be prized in the arena, it's familiarity. We need to get a handle on where the other tributes are, so we can stop worrying about them and start worrying about what the Gamemakers are going to throw at us." Daine glances towards Kel. "I can scout ahead, if you'd like."

"Actually, I'd like you to bring up the rear," says Kel. "You've the sharpest senses of any of us, and you're a fighter. I trust you if we get ambushed." Kel hoists her spear. "I'll take the lead."

They walk through the woods, but Kel keeps feeling the horrible sensation that she is being watched. She tries to shake this off. With all of the far seeing spells set up around the arena, it's not surprising that she would feel observed.

And maybe its because she was preoccupied, but when she comes across Zahir and his crossbow, Kel reacts a split second too late.

But Neal doesn't.

"Kel, look out!" Neal shouts, knocking Kel out of the way. The arrow that had been meant for her misses its target and lodges itself in Neal's neck instead. He coughs once and spits a glob of stringy blood onto the ground, and Kel's eyes widen in horror. Neal falls to his knees, and Kel whips her focus to Zahir, who is hurriedly reloading his crossbow.

This time, it is Kel who does not hesitate. She leaps forward and knocks the crossbow out of Zahir's hands with one violent sweep of her spear. Cold fury washes over her, and Kel knows that she will not be fighting defensively. Not anymore. She has had too much taken from her. She slashes at Zahir, who clumsily parries with a sword that he has just unsheathed. Zahir repositions himself, angling his sword across his body, and skips backwards, but Kel presses down on him ruthlessly until Zahir is at the edge of the clearing, teetering onto the unfamiliar forest beyond.

The monster explodes out of the woods as though it has been activated. It slices Zahir neatly in two before anybody has realized what has happened and a cannon blasts. It leans back on its haunches, and although Kel has never seen anything like this, she recognizes well enough what an animal preparing to pounce looks like. With a shout she shoulder rolls out of the way just as the monster springs forward, crossing the entire clearing in a single bound and spinning in a quick circle with its knife tipped limbs extended. Daine has vanished into the trees, but Uline doesn't get away fast enough. The monster slices her across the middle and there is more cannon fire.

Kel gapes at the monster. It's like nothing she has ever seen before. It looks like a giant metal insect, at least seven feet tall. Its deadly limbs have multiple joints, operated by pulleys, and a rat like tail topped with a spiked mace twitches. Kel is appalled. Is this a machination of the Gamemakers, or a real creation, and Immortal plucked from someone's hideous nightmare? Kel doesn't know how to fight this.

Daine creeps up beside Kel, silent as a shadow. "I don't know what this is," she tells Kel, "but I think I know a way to fight it. I just need you to trust me."

Kel stares at Daine, wide eyed and uncomprehending.

"Look, only one of us can win this," Daine says through a clenched jaw, "But if I don't do what I'm planning to do, that thing will kill us both and nobody will get out. Just stay back, okay?"

There is something powerful and unearthly in Daine's gaze that makes Kel listen even as Daine begins to shed her clothes and walk towards the monster. Her skin begins to ripple and stretch just as Kel realizes that Daine is going to shift, of course she is.

Into what Kel never could have imagined. Transformed, Daine is glorious, her scales of burnished copper throwing off shards of light even in the night. She is three times the size of the monster from nose to tail, but when she stretches her wings it seems like much more. Kel has seen dragons painted and in books, and she has met the infant dragon Kitten. But she has never, ever seen anything like this.

Daine the dragon twines her body around the monster, and though it slashes at her, the blades skid uselessly against her hide.

Dimly, Kel recalls learning what happens to a mage who takes on the form of an Immortal. The mage will be permanently trapped in Immortal form. And then Kel knows that Daine does not intend to come back from this.

Daine looses a screech and then flames shoot from her pearly claws, engulfing dragon and monster alike. They burn in an endless inferno, until the monster is burnt and melted beyond repair and Daine has been reduced to a fine white ash. A cannon blasts.

The sound of the cannon jolts Kel back to reality, and she charges to Neal's side. She is sure she never heard a cannon for him and she hadn't because when she looks at Neal she sees that he is alive, gloriously alive, although the life is ebbing from him quickly.

Neal's eyes focus, and he attempts to smile. "T-told you we would all die," he rasps.

"Don't say that!" Kel insists. "You're not dead yet. We'll figure this out."

"S'nothing to figure out." Neal hacks, and a trickle of blood runs down his chin. "Pull it out."

He means the arrow. "You'll die," says Kel.

"Already dying."

"But you're not dead yet! We can still find something, maybe at the Cornucopia..."

Neal only looks at Kel. They both know that what Neal needs are healers, seriously trained healers, the kind that are nowhere to be found in the Games. And even then, who knows?

Kel takes hold of the arrow, and Neal's eyes never leave her own. Kel sees terror and resentment and rueful determination. She pulls the arrow out with one sharp yank, and sees only terror, and then nothing at all. There is the final boom of a cannon.

Kel gets up and walks away from the body. For the mages, she tells herself.

She has won the 76th Annual Hunger Games.


End file.
